By Ali Ozgun
Hasan wiped flour-dusted hands on his apron, the gesture set to the hum of Melbourne’s autumn traffic drifting through the unfinished restaurant. The sycamores shed orange leaves onto the sidewalk, where a new coffee shop chalkboard boasted “Artisan Türk Kahvesi—$8.”
Standing behind him, Elif, his sister, framed a photo of the exposed brick wall, her phone obscuring half her face.
“This’ll go viral,” she said.
The space was filled with turmeric and fresh plaster. Their grandmother’s recipe book lay open on the stainless-steel counter, its pages stained with decades of olive oil and saffron. Hasan had sketched “Baharat Collective” in minimalist lettering above the door, but the soul of the place was still Nene’s—the woman who’d taught him to knead dough in her kitchen while magpies warbled outside.
Mrs. Demir peered through the window, her silhouette sharp against the glow of the kebab shop. Hasan brought her a test plate of muhammara-glazed ribs.
“Modern takes,” he explained.
She chewed slowly, gaze drifting to the developer’s sign across the street.
“Çok güzel,” she said, but her eyes lingered on the empty tables at her own shop.
Opening night brought influencers clutching LED ring lights. They photographed smoked eggplant mezze under dangling Edison bulbs, their captions hailing “elevated Anatolian cuisine”. By week’s end, the food critics praised his deconstructed içli köfte as “daring yet nostalgic”. Yet the regulars frowned at the $18 lahmacun.
“Since when does flatbread need truffle oil?” Uncle Ali grumbled, rolling a cigarette by the front door.
“People expect creativity now,” Hasan argued, though his hands shook as he plated pomegranate-marinated lamb. “It’s what keeps them coming back.”
At Table 7, a woman in a linen blazer sipped cardamom cold brew.
“So authentic,” she told her companion. “You can practically smell the Istanbul bazaars.” Hasan stared at the neon sign reflecting in her gold watch – and wondered whether the Istanbul bazaars sold vintage gold watches made in Shenzhen.
The developer arrived in the last week of Ramadan.
“Imagine it,” he said, spreading blueprints across the bar. “A food hall with sushi bar, a gelato lab. You’d headline the kiosk.” His cufflinks gleamed like the high-rises in Southbank.
That night, Hasan found Mrs. Demir scrubbing her grill, the smell of charred lamb fat clinging to her wool cardigan.
“They raised my rent 40%,” she said, not looking up. In her steel sink, a nazar charm, its glimmering blue and white eyed stone floated among greasy bubbles.
The market stalls bloomed on a Friday evening. In the field beside the restaurant, Hasan strung fairy lights between gum trees, their bark peeling like stale yufka dough. Mrs. Demir’s sons hauled her vertical grill outside, its metal groaning. Auntie Zeynep arranged syrupy baklava on chipped platters, scolding teenagers as they tried to sneak extra walnuts.
The iftar table was set, dates were handed around in preparation for breaking the fast.
“Call it Çarşamba Pazarı,” Uncle Ali suggested, flames licking his Adana kebab skewers. Just like at the Wednesday Markets back home.
First came the regulars: retired factory workers haggling over stuffed mussels, kids trading Pokémon cards by the lemonade stand. Then the others appeared—grad students scribbling notes on “culinary anthropology,” couples in North Face jackets asking, “Is the Ayran vegan?”
Hasan watched a silver-haired man teach his granddaughter to roll dolma, his fingers swollen from decades at the old Ford factory, as the girl laughed at the rice sticking to her palms.
“Nene used grape leaves from our backyard,” the man murmured. The girl nodded, oblivious to the food blogger filming them.
When the developer returned, Hasan served him menemen on a paper plate.
“We’re keeping the field next door,” he said.
The man nibbled roasted peppers, eyes on the construction cranes over the horizon.
“Let’s talk in six months.”
Rain arrived with winter, pooling in the market’s potholes. Vendors huddled under umbrellas, their laughter battling the hiss of grills. Hasan found Elif filming Mrs. Demir’s hands shaping köfte meatballs, the camera capturing each wrinkle and turmeric stain.
“Views doubled when we stopped using filters,” she admitted.
At midnight, counting earnings between sticky Turkish delight trays, Hasan noticed the numbers—not enough to fix Mrs. Demir’s leaky roof, but sufficient to buy her a month’s worth of lamb shoulder. In his apron pocket, Nene’s recipe book bristled with sticky notes: “Auntie Z’s borek technique—NEVER use frozen pastry” and “Demir’s chilli ratio!!!”
The neon sign flickered through the drizzle. Across the street, the coffee shop’s last customers debated the latest internet fad, NFT art. Hasan locked up, breathing in the wet concrete smell that Melbourne’s winter had etched into everything. It wasn’t perfect, but for now, the kettle was still whistling.
Ali Ozgun is a Year 12 student at Hume Central Secondary College in Broadmeadows whose writing is inspired by life in the bustling north-western suburbs of Melbourne. His story, ‘The New Face of an Old Street’, received the runner-up award in the Young Adas Short Story Prize at this year’s Williamstown Literary Festival. Describing himself as ‘part-aspirational artist, part-environmental activist and part-amateur chef’, Ali holds onto the hope that gentrification in his suburb spares the shops in his neighbourhood.
